In December 1966, Kathleen Brooks purchased her first Volkswagen Beetle in Riverside, California, a car that she affectionately named ‘Annie.’ Through thick and thin, the red Bug has been Brooks’ daily form of transport, racking up over 563,270 km in mileage over 51 years, which is enough to circle the globe 14 times.
Unfortunately, time has taken its toll on the little Beetle, but despite its lacklustre condition, the car still continued to bring Brooks, who is now 73 years old, to work and back. As part of her occupation Brooks, a three-time breast cancer survivor, works with breast-cancer patients and survivors to provide comfort and cosmetic care during treatment and recovery.
This special relationship between car and owner was enough to attract the attention of Volkswagen’s North American Region, as the company decided to undertake a unique project – restoring Annie.
As part of the process, Annie left her home in Riverside and headed to the North American home of the Beetle at Volkswagen’s plant in Puebla, Mexico. Over the course of 11 months, a team of 60 employees and trainees toiled away to bring Brook’s Bug back to factory-quality specifications.
The team had its fair share of issues during the restoration, including a floor pan that has been severely rusted, as well as other niggles involving the car’s suspension, transmission and electrical systems.
According to the team, about 40% of Annie’s parts were replaced, while 357 original pieces were meticulously restored, right down to recreating the stickers that Brooks had added to the body and windows of her car over the years.
The car’s body also received a thorough sandblasting and was repaired with a mix of period-correct and updated parts, and then reassembled. Meanwhile, to recapture the red paint of the Beetle when it left the showroom, the team sampled the original shade from inside the glovebox.
Mechanical updates were also part of the restoration, with disc brakes being one of the upgrades. The engine was also completely disassembled, cleaned, updated and rebuilt, while the wiring was completely redone; the transmission rebuilt and suspension upgraded.
As for the interior, it received a more modern AM/FM/Bluetooth stereo designed to mimic the look and feel of original Beetle radios. Along the way, the team also added a few custom touches to celebrate the undying loyalty Brooks’ has for the Volkswagen brand like custom embroidery on the seats that read ‘Kathleen’ and ‘Annie’.
The goal of the project isn’t to create a Beetle destined for the museum, but to bring Annie back to a state where Brooks could driver and enjoy here for many more years to come, says project manager and mechatronics engineer Augusto Zamudio.
Recently, Volkswagen of America reunited Brooks and Annie in Mexico, and the moment has been documented in these photos you see before you. “We often hear stories of dedicated Volkswagen owners, but there was something special about Kathleen and Annie that we felt we needed to honor,” said Derrick Hatami, executive vice president of Sales and Marketing at Volkswagen of America.
“The original Beetle launched our business in the United States. This isn’t just a Beetle, it’s a member of her family, and after all the time our employees have spent with this special vehicle, we feel Annie is a part of our family as well,” he added.
Brooks says for over five decades, Annie was a constant conversation starter with Beetle fans and owners, but also “always there for me.” “I’ve said many times she and I are so much alike because she’s old, she’s faded, she’s dinged, she’s dented, she’s rusted, but you know what? She keeps running. And as long as I take as good care of her as I can, she’s going to continue to run,” said Brooks.
“When Annie arrived, our team members quickly understood the connection Kathleen had with her car and embraced this project wholeheartedly. Restoring this car posed a number of challenges, but also provided a demonstration of the dedication we put into every Volkswagen we build,” said Steffen Reiche, CEO of Volkswagen of Mexico.
Before departing back to Riverside with Annie, Brooks wrote a heartfelt note to the Puebla team members thanking them for their efforts and asking them to take care of her special car. Zamudio says the feeling is mutual – and the team wrote Brooks back a note of their own. “This was a labor of love for all of us. It was emotional to see Annie go after all the time we have spent working on her, but we are happy Kathleen and her can be reunited,” added Reiche.
This restoration project certainly makes for a heartwarming tale, and we have our share of stories in Malaysia too. Does anyone remember the My Proton Makeover project?
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Could Proton rescue my dad old Wira. It will be very generous if they could.
Wira & Volkswagen cheap parts easily available.
Nobody can rescue any Proton cars anymore. This is because Geely will wipe out all Proton models soon to market all Geely models in Malaysia and Asia. So parts for Proton cars will be hard to get in few years time
In that case I will use my Kancil for another 30 years waiting for P2 to give a restoration work. Last time a pakcik also get his 30 years old SAGA for a makeover, the blue one. Plus a brand new SAGA as well.
The Bettle is the epitome of Volkswagen reliability.
Sadly, newer cars will be lucky to last 5 years without Visting Workshop due to breakdown, let alone 51 years.
Not true Maslan. Just because you hear bad news on media does not mean modern day VWs are not reliable. They are still the most reliable cars sold in many parts of the world.
Not in bolehland, deswai pipu choose local / jepunis cars
I own a veedub. It has visited the workshop twice due to breakdown within 2.5 years. First was a battery claim as the battery died within 1 year of ownership. Fair enough, batteries are consumables and may die. However, the 2nd time was due to a jammed dust cover at the keyhole. i couldn’t start the car. Tell me more about modern VW reliability.
But basher says MY shud learn how to make cars like VW….
im waiting for mercedes benz to restore my w124 230E
I wish Proton would do something similar for me too..My 1996 Satria is in very bad shape..yet it still gets me from point A-B..A workhorse indeed even after more than a million KMs on the odo :P
Most of the restoration parts wud likely come from VW Brazil plant which only stop producing Bugs in 2003.
VW for life :)
The brown proton saga WCP3145 was one of my favorites, it was very sad to hear (if i was not mistaken) that the car was stolen from the owner after the R3 makeover.
Probably by a collector eyeing the mint restoration of that car. Such a sad case when standard P1 cars being treated like artwork.
To be fair, they should also upgrade the safety kits for the car like ABS + EBD, Auto Brake Assist, Pre Collision Warning, Lane Departure Warning, Parking Sensors and most importantly AIRBAGS! Giving a 73 year old grandma an obsolete car with no basic safety kits is like allowing a child running around with a loaded gun. Instead of repairing the car with 40% period correct parts WV should have given her a proper ‘period correct’ car that is road legal and road worthy. Either she will kill herself or ended up killing other drivers very soon. BAAAAAAD DECISION VW!
over 50 years of owning and driving that beetle is proof that human factor is more important than our modern safety techs
Probably she never took it out to the Freeway for a very, very long time. Likely, she just used it to go around here town, so very less chance for accidents to happen.
It would have difficulty merging into the interstates.
Lucky the car is in California. It it was in Ontario, there wouldn’t be much left of it. It would have been rusted out beyond any recognition.
60 employees took 11months to restore this??? That is very very slow!
why the engineers didn’t plonk in a golf gti 2.0 turbocharged engine into Annie? It will be a fun Beetle yo.
And they cant even repair my car properly even i paid them.
Useless company